A warp knit elastic fabric used as belting for undergarments and the like has been previously knitted in which the fabric has broken or interrupted color or pattern stripes on one side. Such prior art fabric comprises a plurality of base yarns which are knitted in closed loops to form a plurality of individually warp-extending wales which are connected on a back side of the fabric by a weft-extending filler yarn contained within the loops and which extends across the width of the fabric. An elastic yarn is laid into each individual wale to provide stretch properties to the fabric. A broken or interrupted striped effect in such fabric is obtained by laying color or pattern yarns into particular wales formed by the base yarn and then masking or overlying portions of the pattern yarns by weft-extending filler yarns on the pattern side of the fabric (that side of the fabric on which the stripe is to appear). These weft-extending yarns are contained in the closed loops of the base yarn and also serve to connect adjacent wales together. This construction requires that at least two weft-extending filler yarns be used on the pattern side of the fabric. A first filler yarn extends from one lateral side of the fabric to an edge of the wale containing the pattern yarn in those courses where the pattern yarn is unmasked and then over that wale in those courses where a pattern yarn is masked. A second filler yarn extends from the opposite lateral side of the fabric to the edge of the wale containing the pattern yarn. The overall effect is that a weft-extending filler yarn extends over the complete pattern side of the fabric except where a pattern yarn is unmasked.
In the event that two or more interrupted patterned stripes are to be produced, the first weft-extending filler yarn extends to the edge of one wale containing the pattern yarn in those courses where the pattern yarn shows in wales and then extends over the two or more wales containing the pattern yarn to the end of the second weft-extending filler yarn in those courses where the pattern yarn is masked. With this construction there is an absense of a weft-extending filler yarn between the adjacent pattern portions of the wales containing the pattern yarn as well as those portions of the pattern yarn unmasked with the result that an additional filler material must be included between the stripes in an attempt to prevent the fabric from bunching or curling when in the relaxed state. This is accomplished by laying or knitting in an additional yarn in the wales separating the adjacent color portions of the two colored stripes.
The prior art fabric described has not altogether been satisfactory because among other things the use of two rather than one weft-extending filler yarn on the pattern side of the fabric as well as additional filler yarns between the pattern stripes results in additional yarn ends requiring additional creel space to accommodate the extra yarns and at the same time requiring additional attention of the operator in setting up the machine and of tying yarn ends together. A still further deficiency of this prior art fabric is that the contrast between the unmasked pattern yarn and the remainder of the fabric is not as sharp and clear as may be desired. This is because there is no plating of the pattern yarn with respect to the base yarn forming the wale into which the pattern yarn is laid and also because only the weft-extending filler yarn is available for masking the pattern yarn.
It is therefore an object of the invention to provide for a warp knitted elastic fabric which will have a distinct contrast between the patterned or colored yarn portions and the base yarn portions and which will give an embossed appearance to the patterned portion. It is a further object of the invention to provide for a minimum of separate yarns that must be utilized in forming such a fabric in order to minimize set up time for a knitting machine producing the fabric, to reduce the creel space necessary to supply yarns to such a machine, and to reduce the number of operations required of the machine operator. It is a still further object of the invention to provide for a warp knit elastic fabric which will have a minimal tendency to curl or bunch up, and which to the contrary, will lie flat in the relaxed state in order to improve ease of garment manufacture.